Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America

by Linda L. Layne

Nearly 20% of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Yet pregnancy loss is seldom acknowledged and rarely discussed. Opening the topic to a thoughtful and informed discussion, Linda Layne takes a historical look at pregnancy loss in America, reproductive technologies and the cultural responses surrounding miscarriage. Examining both support groups and the rituals they create to help couples through loss, her analysis offers valuable insight on how material culture contributes to conceptions of personhood. A fascinating examination, Motherhood Lost is also a provocative challenge to feminists and other activists to increase awareness and provide necessary support for this often hidden but critically important topic.

Genres: Feminism, Anthropology, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Mayrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so happy this book addresses the ways the natural birth movement is harmful bc I have many thoughts about the perception that birth and health are things that we can fully control if only they try hard enough and I love that Layne addresses that

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched, and sometimes heartbreaking. I probably would have enjoyed it more if it had been written in a more literary style rather than a scholarly one.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched, informative, confident in its language yet not inaccessible

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the concept for this book so much more than the execution. First, it is very scholarly and anthropological. Next, she repeats many of the same points over and over again, and the book could clearly have used a stronger editor. I think I was looking for a book about feminism and pregnancy loss that would be applicable to any feminist or person who lost a baby, not just applicable to tenure committees.



Finally, the feminist wrap up in the final chapter is not very feminist. For example, she suggests that when feminism encourages women to take power back from the medicalization of childbirth, it encourages an idea that women can control childbirth and hence women should be somehow be told that childbirth is something outside of control. But that EXACT ideology is how women got roped into birth practices that don't take the opinions of the mother into consideration and flourish on ignorance. I don't think that screwing over all expectant women will help people experiencing pregnancy loss. She also wants "Our Bodies, Ourselves" to put different types of miscarriage in the chapter about pregnancy, not off to the side in another chapter. But she herself says that miscarriages happen for a variety of reasons, some of which are completely baffling. How then, could that be organized into a chapter on pregnancy without making it unwieldy and overrun with non-information? And finally she complains that feminists have not created alternatives to the pervasive and creepy pro-life messages in pregnancy loss rituals. But she is the perfect person to create those rituals, being that SHE is the one who spent 15 years as a feminist studying pregnancy loss. Why she doesn't write a more accessible book for a mainstream feminist audience on this topic baffles me.



Overall, this book has this noble goal of putting pregnancy loss on the feminist agenda (which it should be) but goes about arguing for it in strange and round about ways. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you are an anthropologist or feminist academic, and even then, there are frankly better feminist texts out there on a variety of issues.